94 Years And Counting For Guyle Fielder

Turning 94 isn’t something that has onetime Seattle Totems legend Guyle Fielder all that surprised.

Fielder’s parents both lived into their 90s, after all, while his rumored late-night fondness for shooting pool and swilling beer was apparently not all it was cracked up to be. At least, not the beer-drinking part, since Seattle’s oldest living former professional hockey player still plays pool up to three times a week at the recreation center inside the Mesa, Ariz. retirement community he lives in.

“I took care of my body all through the year,” Fielder said with a chuckle last Thursday, having just celebrated his birthday morning out at his favorite local eatery. “A lot of people have a lot of memories about me – rumors that fly around. But don’t believe everything you hear.

“I was proud of myself,” he added. “I always kept in very good shape. And sure, I had my beer. Who didn’t? But I didn’t overdo it. And if I ever did, it was in the off-season. I was also very fortunate not to get more hurt playing than I did.

“Other than my knee, of course.”

That knee issue, courtesy of a hit in practice by notorious hockey brawler Larry Zeidel, had Fielder walking with a cane and riding around on a motorized scooter when he made a trip up to Climate Pledge Arena last February as a special Kraken guest. Fielder was in town to receive the Royal Brougham Sports Legend Award at the annual Seattle Sports Star of the Year banquet, and the Kraken invited him to see their game a few days later against his former Detroit Red Wings squad.

He watched the game from the owner’s suite, where he was introduced to fans on the arena’s twin scoreboards and given a team jersey with his name on it by general manager Ron Francis. Fielder hadn’t seen Climate Pledge since its $1.2 billion transformation from what was once KeyArena, where Fielder had played home games for the minor pro Totems in the 1950s and 60s under its former Coliseum name.

“What a beautiful building – oh my word!” Fielder said. “It’s awesome.”

Fielder hadn’t been to an NHL game since playing for the Red Wings back in 1957 when that team was stacked with Hall of Famers Gordie Howe, Ted Lindsay, Norm Ullman, Alex Delvecchio, Red Kelly and Terry Sawchuk. He played 15 regular season and playoff games in the six-team NHL and one campaign in the AHL, while the rest were spent in the minor-pro Western Hockey League, mainly with the Seattle Americans and Totems franchise.

His 2,037 total points in all pro leagues trails only Wayne Gretzky, Howe and Jaromir Jagr for the fourth spot all-time. He helped the Totems to their only WHL championships in 1959, 1967 and 1968 and retired from hockey in 1973 with the WHL’s Portland Buckaroos.

Though he still has family in the Seattle area, Fielder doesn’t visit all that often because of a notorious fear of flying. He attended the opening of a replica of his locker stall the Kraken had built at their prior season ticket preview center back in May 2019. Then, his next visit wasn’t until last February’s banquet put on by the Seattle Sports Commission.

He was driven up from Arizona both times by his companion, Betty Johnson, with whom he now lives at the retirement community after selling his own house there. Besides the Kraken game, Fielder and Johnson were both invited guests at the Kraken Community Iceplex the following day, when CEO Tod Leiweke gave them a guided tour of the team’s offices.

“He couldn’t do enough for us,” Fielder said. “He showed us all the rinks and stuff they built up over there at Northgate. They did a great job. And then he took us to the Team Store where we got some hats and shirts.

“But I’ll tell you a funny thing. We had gone to his office and on the way out, there are a bunch of people working there and he announces ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to introduce Mr. Fielder. He’s one of the greatest soccer players who ever played!’

“And then when he turned back around to me and I said: ‘Listen, I never played soccer.’ And then he looked back at the crowd and said: ‘Did I say that?’ And they all told him ‘Yes’ so he got down and did ten pushups right there. He’s a great guy.”

Fielder enjoyed his Seattle visit, but the drive and his knee make it difficult to get around these days. He knows he needs knee replacement surgery but doesn’t want it because of his age.

He can still shoot pool every other day. It was while playing it at the rec center several years ago that he first met Johnson, who had no idea about his hockey-playing past.

Many Seattle sports fans also had no idea about Fielder’s exploits until recent years, the Totems having ceased operations in 1975. But he’s enjoyed the late-in-life awareness of his accomplishments among local hockey fans ever since the Kraken’s arrival, having given up previously on that ever happening again.

His birthday morning was spent with Johnson at the restaurant, and then his niece from Seattle arrived for a stay later that afternoon. The prior day, he received congratulatory birthday phone calls from former Totems teammates Jim Powers and Val Fonteyne. Powers still lives in the Seattle area, while Alberta native Fonteyne’s grandson, Matt, spent five seasons with the Everett Silvertips up until 2018 and now plays professionally in Sweden.

Former Totems trainer Dick Bielous, now living in Montreal, also phoned.

Fielder still watches hockey, with second-year Chicago Blackhawks centerman Connor Bedard among his favorite players.

“He’s pretty small, and some of those big guys are going to try to put him out of commission before too long, I’m sure,” said Fielder, who made his NHL debut with Chicago for three games some 74 years ago. “I sure hope not, though. He’s a pretty talented young fellow.”

Fielder knows about smaller players, having spent the majority of his career at 5-foot-9, 160 pounds.

“I was very fortunate,” he said. “I had good peripheral vision. And I knew who to look out for, where to go and where not to go. You never went into the boards first with those (bigger) guys. You always go in together with them, or they’d run you.”

Words to live by from a Totems legend still living them with a cared-for body that, sore knee notwithstanding, has still gotten him nearly halfway through a ninth decade.